Painted in the Old Russian manner, the full-length image of St. Nicholas was probably intended for a church — the wooden board is rather large, its height is 70 centimeters. The icon is quite complex: together with the main image of the saint, it contains various scenes.
The figure of the saint is in the middle of the icon and divides it into two vertical halves. Nicholas is dressed in episcopal polystavrion (a phelonion embroidered with a pattern of multiple crosses). His right hand is raised in a blessing and with his left he holds the open Gospel — a sign of his holiness. The face is painted with ocher tones, almost monochrome; only small areas have small white dashes around the eyes to enliven the image. The highlights are also used at the tip of the nose, as well as to depict wrinkles and accentuate the forehead. The face has characteristic portrait features that are repeated in many icons: a narrow elongated nose, a high forehead with a receding hairline, and a full beard. Around the head is a halo painted to look like “gold”: the master covered the circle with a special paint, on top of which he applied a drying oil that gives a golden hue.
On the sides of the halo, round medallions depict Christ with the Gospel in His outstretched hand and the Virgin with a robe in Her hands with multiple embroidered crosses. These features point to an incident that happened during the Council of Nicaea, in which St. Nicholas participated. He slapped a participant — the heretic Arius, for which the Council defrocked him. By a miraculous appearance, Christ and the Mother of God restored his vestments, proving to the participants of the Council that Nicholas was right.
Below are hagiographic scenes. On the left side the icon painter depicted the events that indicated that Nicholas even as a baby was destined to become a great saint — His birth and baptism. His pious parents, Theophanes and Nonna, like Joachim and Anna (the parents of the Virgin Mary), and Zachariah and Elizabeth (the parents of John the Baptist), had no children. They prayed to the Lord to give them a child, vowing to dedicate him to the service of God. The child was born when Theophanes and Nonna were rather old. During his baptism, the infant stood on his feet in the baptismal font and received the sacrament while standing. From childhood, Nicholas led an ascetic lifestyle, and his pious parents provided him with a good Christian education.
The next scene depicts Nicholas healing a woman with a withered hand.
The last plot presents his burial. St. Nicholas was
buried in the cathedral of the city of Mira. His soul was lifted up by the
angels to the Lord. Inverse perspective was used to depict the scenes of his
birth and burial — the viewer sees both side walls of the church at once, which
is impossible with the more conventional linear perspective.
